


Within, Without

by ObsidianJade



Series: Within, Without [1]
Category: Cars (Movies), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Planes (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Alternate Universe - Human, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-11-15 16:21:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11234688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObsidianJade/pseuds/ObsidianJade
Summary: Because this fandom doesn't have enough trope-laden AUs.(And because youknowDipper's soul is a sugar glider.)





	1. Diagnosis

**Author's Note:**

> Because clearly working on The Epic is not distracting me enough -or perhaps it's distracting me too much, I can't tell - this piece will not get out of my head. 
> 
> Your basic Daemon!AU. People's souls externally manifest in the form of sapient, talking animals. 
> 
> I've carried over most of the social mores from HDM - for a person to directly address another's daemon is rude, and to touch another's daemon, particularly without permission, is a grievous violation. While an unwanted touch to a daemon can cause intense pain to both the touched daemon and their human, lovers can touch one another's daemons without harm. Daemons can converse with and touch one another without harm and with no more social restriction than between humans.
> 
> The form a person's daemon takes once it settles is an indicator of the person's personality. The majority of daemons settle in reasonably practical forms and sizes, such as dogs, cats, or domestic rodents. Reptiles and birds are not considered favorable. (Birds because of connotations from HDM which aren't entirely present in this story, as 'witches' are not a separate race. Those whose daemons settle to birds are more inclined to a spiritual/religious bent, such as shamanism or priesthood.)
> 
> Daemons cannot stray far from their human, usually a matter of a few feet, before the bond between them begins to stretch and cause pain. The exception to this is people who have undergone Separation, which stretches the bond and allows greater distance. Separation can occur voluntarily as a result of a guided spiritual ceremony, as a result of forced physical separation between human and daemon, or as a result of emotional trauma. 
> 
> A daemon's biological sex is almost always opposite that of their human. There are exceptions, which are generally considered an indication of homosexuality or transsexuality.
> 
> Names and forms of each daemon are explained in end notes of each chapter, with pictures when possible.

“I’m... not going to lie, Dusty. It doesn’t look good.” 

The sympathy in Dottie’s voice was what got to him the most; that nervous, struggling attempt at reassurance. He’d known her too long not to read into the tone. It was the same tone she’d used after he’d been fished out of the ocean a hundred miles from Mexico and nearly coded twice in the rescue chopper on the flight back. 

“I... I’ll still be able to race, right?”

He’d proven her wrong last time. Concussion, six cracked ribs, a fractured radius, and partial drowning be damned, he’d checked himself out - over significant protests from her and Jason, horrified sputtering from Chug and Ruthie, and sympathetic, understanding looks from Sparky, Laramae and Arlana - and gone on and won the race. (The fact that he’d had to be carried out of his borrowed plane after his win was one he ignored more than Dottie and Skipper thought he should.)

Jason, perched on one of the chairs in the corner of the exam room, gave him a disbelieving look. It was one he’d seen more often than he’d care to count on the little Jack Russel’s face. What annoyed him was the fact that his Peregrine was giving him the exact same look from where she sat on the other chair.

“Don’t give me that look, Peri,” Dusty grumbled, ignoring the way the room shifted in his vision as he turned his head. I’ll be fine, right, Dottie?”

Dottie, for her part, sighed heavily and set the ophthalmoscope carefully back on the counter, then slowly began detangling the stethoscope from around her neck. “Dusty...”

“You’re stalling for time,” Jason spoke up, quietly. The soft tone was at complete odds with his usual brusqueness. “Just tell him. He needs to know now so that he can start to accept it.”

“Jason!” Dottie snapped, slapping both hands down on the counter, but, rather than wheeling on her daemon as Dusty had seen her do before, she exhaled hugely and dropped her head. “Jason, I can’t just...”

“Tell him he’s never going to race again,” interrupted Peregrine, her voice so soft it was barely over a whisper, and Dusty spun to shout at his own daemon, ignoring the wave of vertigo-inducing dizziness that swept over him -

until he saw Dottie nod. 

“What?!” he gasped, his voice a horrified rasp, as he clung to the edge of the exam table for both balance and reassurance even as the room wheeled around him. “Dottie, what, no, I’ve recovered from worse than this, I’ve _flown_ through worse than this -”

“And it nearly got you killed! _Twice!!_ ” Dottie bellowed back, shoving away from the counter and spinning to face him with her eyes full of fury. Dusty jerked backwards in alarm and lost his grip on the exam table, nearly falling sideways before he could catch himself again. 

When he glanced to Peregrine for support, he saw that she had her ears folded flat against her head, and her tail tucked between her hind legs where she sat. And Dusty, as stubbornly idiotic as he could be at times, wasn’t going to look Dottie in the eye when she was this mad and point out that he’d been nearly _murdered_ twice, and would she please not make it sound like it had been his fault.

“Dusty, vestibular dysfunction is not something you mess around with,” Dottie hissed, stepping forward until she was a breath shy of leaning on his knees and jabbing him in the chest with an extended forefinger. “Vertigo. Balance issues. Visual perception issues. _Blackouts_. I’m sure you’re having problems with all of them, undoubtedly significantly worse problems than you’re actually _telling me_ , because you’re an idiot. And you want me to tell you that you can go back to flying a plane around obstacle courses at hundreds of miles an hour when you can’t even sit up straight?!”

Put that way, it did sound pretty stupid. 

“If I let you back in the air, you will crash,” Dottie said, enunciating each word with furious precision. “You will crash, and if you do not kill yourself, you will concuss yourself, _again_. Which, because you’re you, will lead to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which will lead to further neurological degeneration, which will -”

“Dottie, I get the point!” 

______________________________________________________________

 

Got the point, yes. Agreed with it... not so much. Which lead to him slipping out of the bar, and getting his plane in the air before anyone could notice and do the sensible thing and stop him, even if Peri was in the back seat of the plane, not speaking but whining as though she was nothing but a dumb dog. 

And then Dusty greyed out on ascent, clipped the high-power lines as he was struggling to regain control, and Peri’s nervous whine turned into a terrified scream as they bounced back to the tarmac.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dusty - Peregrine, or Peri, a Latin-derived name meaning 'traveler', is a red-nosed American Bull Terrier (i.e., pit bull). These sweet dogs are loyal, friendly, and can be tenacious to the point of stupidity. Aggression in this breed comes from extreme provocation or mishandling, not inherent nature. 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Dottie - Jason, a Greek-derived name meaning 'healer', is a Jack Russell terrier. Loud, tenacious, energetic, and protective, these small dogs pack a lot of personality per pound. 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Chug - Ruthie, a name derived from multiple languages with the meaning of 'companion', is a standard grey squirrel.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Sparky - Laramae, a Latin-derived name meaning 'protection', is a Norfolk Terrier, a hardy, cheerful little dog. She's never far from Skipper's Arlana, an Irish Wolfhound whose Gaelic-derived name means ‘oath’. These massive dogs were originally developed for war and hunting large game - like wolves - but are lazy, reasonably friendly dogs despite their intimidating appearance.
> 
>  


	2. Chapter 2

The investigator and his aide arrived in an intimidatingly large SUV, the navy paint and safety-green stripes only making the reflective blue letters on the vehicle’s door stand out more sharply. 

“TMST?” Chug read off slowly, his tone confused, as Ruthie twitched nervously on his shoulder, her tiny, clever paws tangled in his messy brown curls. 

Dusty tuned out their banter, his eyes fixed on Mayday, who was standing at parade rest in front of his ancient fire engine, hands clasped behind his back both to respect the officers striding up to him and to hide his gnarled, arthritic fingers. Standing beside him, Alexandra, his Dalmatian daemon, held her head and tail both defiantly straight, and met the eyes of the approaching daemons without hesitation. 

The inspector was tall, with a severe face and closely-cut dark hair, his eyes hidden behind mirrored aviator glasses, and razor-sharp creases ironed into his navy BDUs. He would have been intimidating enough alone, but the daemon striding at his side was easily mistaken for a black bear at first, until the rusty-brown fur on the dog’s chest and shoulders became visible. The dog had to be three feet at the shoulder, and looked like it easily outweighed Dusty’s own one hundred and forty-five pounds. 

The thigh-high, pale-pink pig trotting beside his aide was almost unnoticeable in comparison.

“Oh, that’s not good,” Dottie murmured, pulling Jason a little closer to her chest. Oddly, the little Jack Russell didn’t complain as he usually would have, his own eyes fixed warily on the massive dog daemon. “A Himalayan mountain dog...”

“A what?” Chug asked, bewildered. 

“Well, the breed is actually referred to by a misnomer, given that they’re neither mastiffs nor native solely to Tibet, so the name Tibetan Mastiff is grossly inaccurate, but -”

“Stop talking, Dottie,” sighed Jason.

“Actually, _keep_ talking,” Skipper grumbled, leaning on the cane that he’d mostly discarded following the Rally. “What does the inaccurately named mastiff represent?” 

“Intelligence, stubbornness, and aggressive protectiveness,” Dottie whispered back. “He’s going to be _merciless_.”

“And the pig?” Chug piped up, glancing around the rest of the group as he spoke. 

“Intelligent and persistent,” Dottie whispered back, as Skipper and Sparky exchanged glances with Laramae and Arlana. The two were lying at their humans’ feet, Laramae’s compact terrier form sprawled comfortably over Arlana’s extended front legs. The two dog daemons never seemed to be more than a few inches apart, if that. 

Idly, Dusty wondered how long the speculation about Skipper and Sparky’s relationship had taken to die down when the pair had first moved to Propwash. Generally, having one’s daemon be in regular physical contact with someone else’s suggested... well, a lot more than he’d ever seen Skipper and Sparky suggest. Against conventional daemon wisdom, the pair really did seem to be nothing more than close friends.

“They also tend to be people in assistant capacities,” Sparky added, and it took Dusty a moment to backtrack to the subject. “There were a bunch of pig daemons attached to the Wrenches, but not the pilots, guys like the mechanics and the support staff, mostly? The more social ones who worked in a group, not the, um...”

“Lone wolves?” Skipper offered, dryly.

“Or lone wolf _hounds_ ,” Arlana added, her husky contralto voice equally dry, as Laramae buried her nervous snickers in Arlana’s chest. 

_____________________________________________________

It went... about as badly as Dottie predicted. 

The airstrip was closed down, which would cut the town’s entries for the Corn Festival Airshow from fifty-something to about three (two, if you disqualified Dusty from the show as Dottie was intent on doing, and nobody was likely to pay full ticket price just to see Skipper and Leadbottom flying around, even if Skipper had perfectly restored his old Corsair), which was... well, bad. 

And then Dusty had opened his mouth and _words_ had fallen out, words he was not entirely certain he was intending to have fall out, and maybe Dottie was right about the whole brain injury thing. 

He resisted the urge to wilt like drought-stricken corn under the inspector’s gaze. Even filtered through those sunglasses, the guy’s concealed disdain smarted. Peri, who had stared down disbelief from Jason and Arlana all the way to the venomous jeering of Ripslinger’s Erna, stood silently behind his leg, tail between her legs and her whole body trembling. 

And then the inspector had agreed to his idiot plan. 

And Mayday had agreed to call a friend of his - a former student, maybe? - and Dottie had shouted for twenty minutes straight but thrown up her hands in the end and told him that if he crashed himself it was his own damn fault, and Dusty found himself at his apartment packing a suitcase kind of before he’d processed exactly what was going on.

“So,” Peri said, the first word she’s spoken to him in almost two days. She’d never been as vocal as some - like Jason, for example, who talked nearly as much as Dottie, or Arlana, who, if not as talkative as some, spoke nearly as much as Skipper - but since Dusty’s concussions, Peri had been speaking less and less. “This is...”

“Really, incredibly stupid?” Dusty asked, inspecting the shirt he was holding for holes and throwing it back in the drawer in disgust when he spotted three. Racing may have brought big money in, but it tended to send equal or greater amounts of money _out_ , on things like aircraft maintenance, mostly, but occasionally traveling and little luxuries like _food_ , when it wasn’t provided at the races, and a lot of his clothing was... not exactly presentable. He wasn’t sure about the laundry facilities at the airbase he was going to, but he certainly didn’t own a month’s worth of clothing, or the suitcases it would require. 

“Nearly as stupid as trying to fly around the world,” Peri answered, her laughter soft and tired. 

Dusty dropped the next shirt in his suitcase without looking at it and turned to flop down on the bed next to it, the suitcase and Peri both bouncing as he hit the mattress. “Yeah. Pretty stupid, wasn’t it.”

Peri’s nose was cold against his forehead as she slid her head against his, stepping forward until their foreheads bumped, hers upside-down against his. “We’re idiots, you realize.”

“Suicidal idiots,” Dusty agreed, reaching up to tug on her ears, pulling her head upwards and forwards until her nose was over his forehead again and he could meet her eyes. “Stupid and suicidal doesn’t have a bad record for us.”

“First-time ag pilot to ever win an international racing championship,” she agreed. “We wouldn’t be the first to transition to firefighting. Think our luck will hold?”

“It’s still stupid and suicidal,” Dusty pointed out. “We should be fine.”

“I thought so,” Peri answered, and lifted her head enough to pull her ears out of Dusty’s hands. “And about your packing....”

“What about it?”

“That’s the shirt with the Sharpie all over it from Chug and Sparky playing the drinking game -”

Dusty snatched the shirt back out of the suitcase before she could finish, balling it up and hurling it towards the corner of his room. The absolute last thing he needed was to meet Mayday’s friend with ‘STRUT JETSTREAM’ and ‘TURBO COACH TRUCKZILLA’ written across his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mayday: Dalmation, Alexandra. Dalmatians, originally bred as carriage dogs, [have long been synonymous with fire companies.](https://www.livescience.com/33293-dalmatians-official-firehouse-dogs.html) Alexandra is a little unusual in that she is a brown, rather than black, Dalmatian. Her name is derived from Greek, meaning 'defender' or 'protector'.  
> 
> 
> Ryker: Tibetian Mastiff, unnamed.  
> 
> 
> Kurtz: American Yorkshire Pig, unnamed.  
> 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little something to keep you entertained while I work on the next chapter of The Epic, since this is much faster and easier to write. (Somewhat helped by the fact I'm doing far fewer edits on it, just yell if you see any huge grammatical or spelling issues, please!)

The high roar of the engine, coupled with the enthusiastic whoop, gave Dusty enough warning to duck before the dirtbike sailed narrowly over his head; apparently that cut-away hill beside the runway was, in fact, a dirtbike jump. Peregrine hit the tarmac on her belly, eyes wide. There weren’t a whole lot of dirtbikes in Propwash Junction, and while having planes buzz overhead was as familiar as the sound of wind in the corn, having a dirtbike sailing over at an altitude of perhaps eight feet was... new. And kind of terrifying.

“DRIP!” bellowed a voice from above, pulling Dusty’s and Peri’s attention away from the dirtbike wobbling to a stop in the mud-tracked green space beside the runway and back up to the top of the jump. Three more riders had lined up along the top of the jump, joined by a caribou, a bighorn ewe, and some type of antelope, all three of whom where panting heavily, their flanks wet with sweat, apparently having been running to keep up with the dirtbikes. A fourth rider, not accompanied by any obvious daemon, was rolling her bike down the sloping side of the jump to confront the rider who’d jumped them. 

She - definitely a she, by the curves under the body armor - kicked the stand on her bike down and dismounted in a fast, smooth movement, striding forward and grabbing the handlebars of the other bike. “Drip, you nearly took the guy’s head off!” 

Dusty’s attempted murderer pulled his helmet off, revealing a round, friendly face with a sheepish grin and a floppy mess of blond hair. “It wasn’t on purpose! Blackout said I was okay to go!”

“I did?” came the bewildered response from atop the jump - from the center rider, Dusty thought, although it was hard to tell with their helmets all still in place. The other two riders - a male on the left, a female on the right, both taller and broader in build than the rider in the center - both turned to stare at their fellow rider.

“You did,” chorused the caribou and the antelope, while the bighorn sighed heavily. 

There was a low grumble from the back of the first woman’s bike, and the bundle of leather and nylon that Dusty had originally taken for saddlebags detached itself from the back of the saddle with a snort. “Your memory, boy...”

Dusty tried not to stare, he really did. But it was the first time he’d even seen a European badger daemon - let alone a European badger daemon dressed in a clearly ultra-custom protective bodysuit.

“I can’t help it, Kendrick,” the center rider protested, stripping off his goggles and helmet, and Dusty went from trying not to stare at the badger to trying not to stare at the guy apparently called Blackout who _spoke directly to another person’s daemon_. Dark hair, dark eyes, medium-tan skin, pleasant features. Didn’t look like someone who would so casually violate such a taboo subject. 

“Maybe if you _looked_ before you cut...” began the caribou, who was promptly interrupted by a pair of protective gloves sailing into her face from the left-hand rider. One flopped down to roll harmlessly off her nose, but the other lodged in the lower fork of her antler, fingertips drooping down over her left eye. 

The woman with the badger daemon had turned to face the group on the top of the jump, one fisted hand planted on her hip, the other still clenched firmly around the handlebar of Drip’s bike. “HEY!” 

All three riders and their daemons winced, turning as one to face her. 

“Sort yourselves out. In case none of you noticed, we have a guest.” Nodding to Dusty - he nodded back, feeling a little numb - the woman tapped her armored chest with one hand. “I’m Dynamite. My daemon’s Kendrick, and these idiots are my Smokejumper crew. Up on the hill is Avalanche, he goes with Halvor, the caribou; Blackout and Carisa, she’s the bighorn, Pinecone, Farrell is around somewhere; and that’s Talullah, who is stuck with Evil Kenumbskull here. I’m guessing you’re our SEAT trainee?”

“Um. Yes?” Beside him, Peri still had her tail half-tucked, eyes darting in confusion from Dynamite to the group on the hill. What had she meant, that _Farrell was around somewhere_? And how the heck did someone end up with a nickname like _Pinecone_?? “I’m Dusty Cropphopper and -”

A shrill, wordless squeal cut him off, and glanced up in time to see a flash of bright movement shooting towards him. Instinct alone had him ducking only just in time to avoid the tackle-hug, Peri scrambling aside with a shrill yelp to avoid being brushed against. It took a long second and a few blinks for the world to stop spinning from the sudden movement, and Dusty got his bearings again, he found himself staring up at an improbably tall woman, whose bright yellow button-down shirt, tied high over her navel, was straining over a frankly alarming set of endowments. The woman squealed again, clapping her hands and bouncing on the balls of her feet. “You’re Dusty Cropphopper?! You’re my favorite race pilot! My name’s Dipper, I mean, it’s Leah but everyone calls me Dipper, so you can too, and oh my God I’m your _biggest fan_!”

She bounced when she said the words. He didn’t doubt it for a minute. 

“I have seen every single one of your races on RSN, I’ve taped most of them so I can watch them again and again, I always learn something from watching you fly, you’re such an incredibly talented pilot -”

A hand reached past Dusty’s shoulder from behind, startling him sideways again, and settled firmly on the woman’s yellow-clad shoulder. 

Dusty wheeled around and stared, not having heard anyone coming up behind him. And stared up. And up. And _up_ , at a guy who looked like he might have been carved out of a giant redwood. Dressed in worn jeans, a green button-down shirt, and a spectacular necklace of bone beads and turquoise, with black hair caught up in two thick braids that fell halfway down his chest, there was no questioning the man’s heritage, even if Dusty’s mind stuttered in an attempt to even guess his height.

Or to make sense of the thick leather pad on the man’s shoulder, held securely in place with a series of straps - a short one that ran over his pectoral to a thick metal ring, where it branched off to two further straps, one of which looped around his ribs to his back, the other of which stretched down to his belt.

“Six seven.”

Dusty’s stuttering mind hiccuped, backtracked, and blanked. “Si... sorry, what?”

“My height,” came the calm reply. “I am six foot seven.”

“You’re... very tall,” Dusty answered, blinking up at him. 

The man didn’t answer, just tipped his head back slightly, his nostrils flaring for a second, testing the scent of the weak breeze rising from the valley. “The one the Lakota call Heyokha beats his drum with the wind to make thunder. With thunder comes lightning... and with lightning... comes fire.”

Dusty blinked up at him, then glanced down, meeting Peri’s equally bewildered gaze. Off to one side, he was distantly aware of Dynamite facepalming and her team smothering their laughter. 

“Windlifter - “

Whatever Dipper had been starting to say was cut off by a shrill whistle from above, and the purpose of the pad on the tall guy’s shoulder became apparent a second later when a golden eagle about the size of a swan came arrowing down out of the sky and backwinged to a stop on the pad, talons the length of Dusty’s fingers digging into the thick padding. 

“Saddle up, everyone, we have trouble!” the eagle shouted, her voice loud enough to echo across the patched concrete, and everyone _scattered_. 

Engines roared as Dynamite’s teams gunned their bikes, laying rubber on the concrete as they shot towards a building marked with a winged flame surmounted by a parachute. Dipper wheeled around and ran, every trace of the over-enthusiastic fangirl gone, green eyes determined as she bolted for a nearby hanger. 

The tall man turned on his heel, the eagle’s wings flaring out to maintain her balance, and set off for a massive green helicopter waiting near the huge metal tanks at the far end of the taxiway. 

He was six strides away when the eagle turned her head to fix Dusty with one sharp eye. “Well?” she demanded, wings and tail giving a little flip. “Aren’t you coming?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, don't feel bad if you can't keep track of which daemon belongs to which Jumper boy - _I_ can't. I suspect that sometimes they can't, either. 
> 
> Dynamite: European Badger, Kendrick (Anglo-Saxon, Fearless Leader) Euro badgers are small but notoriously tough, family-oriented, and will often share their burrows with other species.  
> 
> 
> Avalanche: Caribou, Halvor (Norse, ‘Rock Defender’) Caribou, or reindeer, are adaptive and enduring. Both males and females have antlers.  
> 
> 
> Blackout: Carisa, Bighorn sheep, (Spanish, ‘very dear’) Tough, agile, and undaunted by pretty much anything.  
> 
> 
> Drip: Springbok, Talullah (Choctaw, ‘leaping water’) These African gazelles are known for their behavior of _pronking_ , or stiff-legged, back-arching leaps up to six feet into the air.  
> 
> 
> Pinecone: Swallow-tailed kite, Farrell, (Irish, ‘of proven courage’) These sleek, distinctive raptors spend almost all their time on the wing and are talented acrobats. Farrell likely chose this form in order to help scout fires, as he was not yet Settled when Pinecone chose her career.  
> 
> 
> Windlifter: Golden Eagle, Awenasa (Cherokee, ‘my home’) An enormous, powerful bird of prey considered holy by many Native American tribes.  
> 
> 
> Dipper: Sugar Glider, Muireadhach, (Gaelic, compound ‘sea’ + ‘happy’. Pr. Myoor-dahk) These tiny, flying-squirrel-like marsupials are highly social and require a great deal of interaction to remain happy.  
> 


End file.
